Sunday, March 18, 2018

Last week students throughout
the country demonstrated their concern and memory for the 17 students and
educators who were killed at their high school in Florida.The reactions to the question: “Should we
let them?” were across the spectrum from “no, and there will be consequences if
you do”, past benign neglect all the way to the other end where administrators
facilitated the event and faculty participated with students.

My first reaction was why the
question was even asked.Many years
ago the Supreme Court made clear that students do not leave their first
amendment rights at the school house door unless
the demonstration of those rights would disrupt the education of others.

Of course, the supporters of
“there will be consequences” immediately jumped on the disruption factor.Yet in school systems that either allowed
but did not facilitate and in school systems that facilitated and participated
there were no disruptions.The students
and their supports walked out of class for 17 minutes, mostly stood in silence
with heads bowed, then reentered their schools.In some communities, students had assemblies
and discussions on the event and their very strong feelings that they did not
want this tragedy to touch their school and what could be done to prevent that.

We have universal education
at public expense in our country.We
even limit the liberty of children between 5 and 16 (mostly although the end
limit varies) to do anything but attend school.It is expensive so there must have been a
good reason for this requirement.

Although it is often
forgotten, the reason was that as suffrage expanded we needed an educated
electorate to make these elections work.The need to train workers for the economy is a relatively recent reason to fund public education.

If we go back to our roots in
public education, we still need an educated electorate.Our students need more education in civics
than they need chemistry or trigonometry.The students who left their classrooms last week were not only speaking
out for their cause but they were demonstrating an understanding of how a
democracy works.I found it particularly
confusing that the advocates for punitive consequences for the students leaving
school for 17 minutes and, thereby, disrupting their education was to promise
that they would be suspended for a day causing their education to be further
disrupted.Where is the consistent
value here?

We have no business asking
the question should we let them.Our
job as educators is to not only “let” them but to encourage them to think more
about their values as citizens in a democracy and how those values will be
played out by their civic activism and their voting record.The children of the 1950’s were repeatedly
reprimanded for being the apathetic generation.Now our children are no longer
apathetic.They want to take up the
discussion and make change.And we have
the nerve to ask the question- Should we let them?

Tuesday, March 13, 2018

There are dumb ideas and then
there are really stupid ideas.The
notion to arm teachers in the wake of the most recent school invader shooting
certainly ranks as a really stupid idea.

What are these people
thinking!?There are so many reasons
this idea is so bad that it is hard to begin.

Let’s begin at the
beginning.The solution to the problem
of a violent, probably mentally ill person in a school is to provide more armed
people with guns in a school.Has it
ever occurred to people that there are some teachers who also may have mental
health issues?But Trump says some
teachers might have a knack for guns and those teachers should be trained and,
perhaps, even given a bonus for being willing to be armed.

A teacher’s first job is to
teach children.However, we already
know that a number of children find their parents’ guns and use those guns to
create harm either intentionally or unintentionally.How will we protect students and staff from
some students finding the teachers’ guns and using them to settle a school
argument.What will happen to a
teacher’s gun when she/he goes home from school?That gun will go home with the teacher.Now we have a significant increase in the
number of homes with guns.Not a good
idea.

Then there is the faith that
a teacher trained to use guns will demonstrate that training in skilled way if
the school is invaded.The teacher, in
the heat of the crisis, will be able to distinguish the intruder from the plain
clothes resource officer who may be in the area, also with a gun who may be
shooting.The teacher will get a
straight shot at the invader.The
invader will stand still so the teacher can take a good shot and the students
will all move out of the way so they are not hit by a stray bullet.The entire scene will freeze in time to
allow this marginally trained teacher to be calm in the moment using the pistol
to fire in the direction of the automatic rifle that is being fired.Really!! What fantasy island do you live on!

Our solution to the problem
of violence is to create the opportunities for more violence.A person may be a straight shooter but that
is not straight thinking.

Our society has become
increasingly violent.Many reasons for
this violence have been advanced.Media
in the form of games, movies and popular music have exposed us to increasing
amounts of violence so that our threshold for outrage keeps getting
higher.Mental health treatment gets
minimal attention in our health care system.School are becoming bigger and bigger so kids aren’t known to teachers
as feeling people but rather as potential test scores that could raise or lower
a teacher’s rating.It is no wonder some
kids feel alienated from the very group whose attention and caring they want.

The United States already has
the largest number of guns per capita among first world nations. There are approximately 50 million children in our public schools. Tragically 200 of them have been killed by armed invaders. Giving more guns to more people, particularly
teachers, solves nothing.It just gives
people more opportunity to shoot ‘em up.

Monday, March 5, 2018

Many of us remember the old
nursey rhyme about when she was good, she was very, very good; but when she was
bad she was horrid.Evidently many,
many people feel that way about kids with disabilities.Suspension and expulsion rates for children
with disabilities are two times higher than they are for plain kids.This information is based on data from the
U.S. Office of Education.

According to the report, children
with disabilities make up 12.46% of enrollment in traditional public
schools.Yet they were subject to
discipline at roughly twice that rate.In fact, 11.56% of children with disabilities had been suspended and .26
% had been expelled.

It is interesting to explore
the possible reasons for this huge difference.The most simple reason is that kids with disabilities are just not as
well behaved as plain kids.But simple
reasons are mostly easy answers.

A better reason is that in
spite of the requirement in the law that the manifestation of a child’s
disability may not be used for disciplinary reasons, it is happening all the
time.

Another reason is the huge
push towards fully including children with disabilities into traditional
classrooms.When this happens most of
the training received by teachers is designed to meet the academic needs of the
students.There is little to no training
regarding behavioral management of children with disabilities nor how to manage
their differing social and emotional needs.

One of the aggravating
factors for children with disabilities is academic frustration and
embarrassment that they cannot keep up with their peers.General education teachers are not trained in
differentiating instruction in ways that are needed by children with learning
challenges.They have little to no
training in understanding children with autism and how that impacts the child’s
perception of the world.Teachers need
to be trained in the causes of those challenging behaviors not just keep
reacting to them with suspensions which only lead to more disconnection with
the class.Teachers need to be trained
in positive behavioral supports.For
the most part they are not.The ability
to recognize the purpose of the behavior to the child as opposed to the teacher’s
analysis of what the teacher thinks the purpose is cannot be overstated.It is a science to determine what is
motivating the CHILD not what the teacher thinks is motivating the child.

Just maybe all these kids
with disabilities really are very, very good when they are understood instead
of being treated as if they were horrid.

About Me

I have been in the field of special education for 53 years. I have taught at the University of Maryland, College Park. I also have been an administrator of a local school system's special education department and the assistant superintendent for special education for the Maryland State Department of Education. Thirty-three years ago I started The Harbour School a special private school for children with autism, learning disabilities and other learning challenges.